Re: EA App: Sims 3 Create a World Edit in-game doesn't work

@SimPoppy If you're still here, a few of us have posted workarounds. As of March 2023, I can say that they work. They are:

1. Download older version of Origin, turn off automatic updates, go offline, then add one line of code to local.xml file.
This is the quickest and cheapest way to keep using CAW and EIG. The only issue is that it's anyone's guess how long players can keep doing this, since there may come a day when they switch the servers off so it's unusable.

2. Uninstall your game and switch to all discs and patch to 1.67.
Cheap if you or someone else you know already has the discs, not so cheap if you don't. (It will mean bumming copies off of eBay).

3. Switch to Steam and use registry hack to get CAW to work there.
Again, cheap and easy if you already own a Steam copy of TS3, but expensive if you don't, as you'll have to rebuy everything.

I'm not re-downloading the older platform and adding code for it to work today, when tomorrow it might not as you say. I've already spent over £300 for all the games on Origin so I don't feel like spending anymore money or my time hunting on eBay for discs. Neither do I feel like giving EA another £120 for the same games just on another platform - I hope nobody has given EA more money because of this broken feature that clearly a lot of people care about.

Fortunately I have got EIG to work without spending anymore money, unfortunately I can't say much more here. 

Thank you for the workarounds!

I have this problem too, tried to used modded launcher too, or game without any mods, but nothing worked.

From my perspective the problem has really trivial cause. After clicking "Edit in game" button, Create a World Tool tries to open the game directly, by skipping the launcher. Origin had added that program to exceptions and allowed it to open the game by itself. EA app doesn't have this program in exceptions and doesn't allow it. When I try to use Edit in Game mode, CAW tries to open the game and skip the launcher, by then EA app interrupts it, stops the process, and then launch the game by it's own basis just regularly opening the launcher. So the right process which was supposed to happen, was just broken in meanwhile.

I don't know if adding this program to exceptions in EA app resolve all the problems, but it's worth to try at first place. Don't know how if EA app and Origin are similar in coding, or are on competely different engines, but developers should check out how it was resolver in case of Create a World Tool. Cause Origin allowed to use it and launch the game with it's own method.

CAW is located usually in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 Create a World Tool

but for odd reason, folders are named in different way for each language version. For example, for polish language version the path looks like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Narzędzie The Sims 3 Stwórz świat

...

But the thing that doesn't change, is inside of these folders. Create a World Tool is simply called "CAW.exe" and as I said, it's located in these path above. Maybe players playing in other language versions will paste the exact location in their case too. What I try to say, is that it's worth to start here and add "CAW.exe" to exeptions, so EA app would allow it to open the game on it's own way (without the launcher), to simply edit the worlds and let simmers end their long term projects in game.

Hope I can mention there EA's employees @EA_Cade 

After reading EA_Cade's comments here , I started wondering if the best (and potentially easiest) solution for EA would be to release a build-mode-only version of TS3 for world developers.  I mean, we don't need the full functionality of the game for EIG work.  And build and play modes operate from different (albeit connected) code cores, don't they?  Maybe it could be possible to snip them apart and put out a build-only shell engine to work with CAW.

Of course, I have limited programming experience and maybe this wouldn't be an easy thing to do.  I just feel like this shouldn't be as complicated as EA seems to be trying to make it.

@natashajones615 I think you figured out something, but my feeling is that they won't do what you've just asked.

I'm going to throw out a theory as to what I think happened with EIG and the EA App. I believe that this was all by design--not for malicious purpose; instead, out of misguidedness.

I say that because I've seen that over the past several years, there's been an industry-wide trend in the tech sector to force users into these highly restrictive ecosystems for some reason or other (safety issues, licensing, etc.). These ecosystems have become so heavy-handed that they're now crippling programs and in some cases hardware on people's systems.

For example, longtime simmers remember the frustration of Microsoft putting out an update that crippled Sims 1 in Windows 7, then completely killed the game in Windows 10. I have had software (not gaming but vide editing) suddenly get crippled when the manufacturer dropped support for codecs. Microsoft also released Windows 11 demanding something known as TPM, now cutting off millions of users who are still on older machines.

My theory is that the whole point of EA App is to force users to migrate to this restrictive ecosystem for security and anti-piracy measures, and that for whatever reason, they just don't want EIG baked into the App.

I happen to have bought all my The Sime 3 stuff via Steam. (So, I am not sure why the Origin app is even being used... maybe because I registered over there or something.)

Anyway, I am tempted to installing from Steam again (32 GB to download!) and using your "registry hack" idea. However, I do not know what that is. Could you please elaborate on that process?

I appreciate your and everyone else's time on this. Clearly, the The Sims 3 fanbase is a live and well.

Thank you!

Snootch

@SnootchDog  I believe this is what the other player meant:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277022926

This is the standard way to make CAW work in a Steam install.

I found whe trying to play caw "in program"  it would crash every time!!!

Hi ! I'm sorry you encountered this issue, but my error is a bit different... As I said, it seems that the CAW 3 won't launch because it doesn't recognize that I am the user who installed it. 🙂

Anybody tried downloading CAW in 2024? I found a link to download and install it but when I try to open CAW I get this error: Sims 3 CAW has crashed! Exception information: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

I am using the EA app but do have copies of all my discs. I'm suspecting that it's an EA problem? Wondering if I uninstalled and blocked the EA app, then reinstalled using only CD's, it might work?

@65b52ed45f2ec52b  I don't know whether this particular error would be resolved if you switched to an all-disc install.  But I do know I don't see many posts about CAW not working aside from the known issue with Edit In-Game with the EA App version.  So I would guess it's relatively stable.

The other possibility is you've downloaded the wrong version of CAW.  There's one for patch 1.67 (disc and Steam installs) and one for 1.69 (Origin/EA App installs), and neither works with the other type(s) of install.

Thanks for your input. I did select the right version. I think I'm just too late to the party lol.

I have downloaded CAW edit in game doesn't work.

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@65b52ed45f2ec52b wrote:

Thanks for your input. I did select the right version. I think I'm just too late to the party lol.

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Are you sure about that?

That is the specific error that you get if you install the wrong version of CAW. The CAW tool has to match the version of The Sims 3 that you have installed. 

Also, make sure you're downloading from the actual Sims 3 site and not off-site.